Tag Archives: wedding trivia

Indian weddings are known for their lavish arrangements and different rituals. You can’t imagine a single wedding without loads of rituals and big celebrations. The day of wedding is filled with different ceremonies and wedding rituals, where family and friends come together to wish the couple for their happy married life. Most of the family members and even the bride and groom are also busy in performing various rituals. The memories of wedding are sweet and remain for forever. But, vidaai ritual is one such ceremony, which has mixed emotions like a mix of joy and sorrow. Let’s take a look at some important aspects of vidaai ceremony.

Vidaai ceremony symbolizes the final stage of wedding where the bride’s parent bid farewell to their daughter.

It again symbolizes the beginning of her new life where she has to maintain a balance between her new life and old life.

Now she steps out from the comfort zone of her parent’s house and get ready to take the responsibilities of her new family.

The girl throws back the handful of rice and coins three times before leaving her parent’s home. This act symbolizes that as she wishes that per parent’s house always remain prosperous.

After the bride’s parents give her daughter’s hand to their son-in-law, it symbolizes that he will take care of her and always be there to support her and guide her throughout the life.

As final ritual of the vidaai ceremony brothers and cousins of bride pushes the car from behind-as a ritual bespeaks them wising her luck and pushing them towards the joy and prosperity in life.

Tamil people are popular for their simplicity and elegance. Even in their wedding as well you will not see any extravagant affair or over the top things like Punjabi and North Indian weddings. However, Tamilians don’t like to show-off a lot in their wedding. Besides, their wedding is full of traditions and rituals. These people are very close-knitted and ensure that all the family members and even distant relatives will also attend the wedding. The wedding is generally considered as one of the most sacred ritual. These people pay much attention to traditional rituals and ceremonies. A South Indian wedding is full of beautiful ceremonies and sacred rituals. Let’s have a close look at some important rituals and ceremonies of Tamil wedding.

Panda Kaal Muhurtham: This is the first ceremony or we can say that it marks the beginning of the marriage rituals. This ceremony takes place just a day before the wedding function. During this ritual, both bride’s and groom’s family attend this ceremony together and pray for a peaceful, happy and uninterrupted wedding ceremony.

Sumangali Prarthanai- a holy prayer for married women: The term sumangali indicates to women who are blessed with a harmonious and happy married life. During this ceremony, a holy prayer is conducted and prayers are offered to Sumangalis and the bride-to-be too seeks their blessings for a happy married life in future. In this ceremony, all the sumangalis are required to wear a traditional nine-yard saree or Madisar as it is traditionally required for the pooja. The Sumangali’s who attended the pooja should be in odd-number like 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11. Once the Sumangali pooja gets over, all the Sumangali’s are treated with an authentic South Indian feast served on banana leaf.

Pallikai Thellichal: to perform this ceremony 9 types of grains along with curd are mixed and filled into 7 different earthen pots which are nicely decorated with sandalwood. These pots are later on immersed in the water to feed the fishes. Since this ritual includes feeding the fishes, it is generally considered auspicious for the couple’s new journey and beginning in life.

Naandi Shradham: In this ritual, the bride and the groom’s family pay homage to their ancestors. 10 Brahmins or less are invited for an authentic South Indian feast by both the set of families. In this ceremony Brahmins are offered coconut, flowers, paan supari, sweets and veshti angavastram (traditional clothes) and they are requested to bless the couple.

Nichayathartham (engagement): In this ritual the ceremonies begin with performing Ganesh puja by the bride’s family. In this ceremony, the groom’s family offer gifts, saree, jewelry and other things to bride and bride’s family gift the groom new set of clothes. The bride and groom chance the dresses and wear the new clothes offered by other’s family. After that the groom’s sister applies kumkum and chandan tilak on the bride’s forehead and the bride’s brother also perform the same with groom. The bride’s brother offers a garland of flowers to the groom while the groom’s sister does the same for the bride. After complete all these rituals, the bride and groom then exchange rings in the presence of family members, relatives and friends.

Lagna Pathirikai: Lagna Pathirikai in Tamil translates to a wedding invitation. After the engagement ceremony, the wedding date is officially announced in front of all family members, guests and priest.

Whenever we see a weeding scene in the movie, we find it really exciting and fun filled as in most of the Indian movies we see Punjabi wedding rituals. Do you remember any movie where you find a wedding scene really exciting and fun filled? Every time when we talk or think about Punjabi weddings, we just remember the cheerful faces, fun filled rituals and goody attires and loud dance, etc. Karan Johar and Yash Chopra are two people, who have depicted the Punjabi wedding rituals in their movies and people loved these larger than life ceremonies and rituals.

Punjabi wedding is not just about different rituals, but more about vibrant and full of life ceremonies to bring everyone closer and feel the happiness and joy. Punjabi wedding consist different rituals, let’s take a look at different wedding ceremonies of Punjabi wedding.

Roka ceremony: This ceremony is something similar to engagement ceremony. In this ceremony, the bride and groom give their acceptance to this new relationship in respective families. Both the families exchange the gifts and other things. Generally people invite their family and friends in this ceremony.

Taka ceremony: This is next thing after Roka ceremony, when both the families meet and sit together to fix the date of wedding. Taka means ‘setting the date’ for wedding. This ceremony generally takes place at bride’s place to fix the wedding date and start the preparation of other important ceremonies.

Kurmai: This is formal engagement ceremony, which is generally done at grooms place or at some Gurudwara. In this ceremony, all the family members from both the families are invited and groom present the engagement ring to bride. After the exchange of ring the bride’s family offers kara to the groom as ritual. Generally, the engagement ceremony starts with a short prayer by Granthi (sikh priest). After this short prayer, red scarf is places around the groom’s shoulder along with dried dates according to granthi’s instructions and then grandfather feeds that dried dates to the groom. After this ritual both families enjoy the meal.

Chunni rasam: This ceremony takes place at bride’s house, where the mother of the groom cover the brides head with chunni, which indicates that from now onwards she is part of their family and she is supposed to respect and upload the honor and pride of the family. In this ceremony, the bride wears clothes and jewelry gifted by her in-laws. Groom marks her head with sindoor as sign of commitment. After this, groom’s parents offer shagun to bride and her family as blessing and acceptance of engagement. Both the family exchange the gifts followed by lavish celebration with a lot of music and dance take place.

Mehendi and Sangeet ceremony: These two ceremonies are full of excitement and joy. Mehendi ceremony is generally conducted in both the families, where all the ladies of the family smear mehendi on their hands. In sangeet ceremony, the family members, relatives and friends perform dance on various songs and other traditional folk songs. Sangeet is all about making merry and having fun. Women sing and dance on various traditional songs as well.

Chuda ceremony: This is the ritual that happens in the bride’s house. The girl’s maternal uncle or brother helps her to wear chuda, set of white and red bangles. After that, the girl is smeared with turmeric and oil paste. All the ladies of the family smear turmeric paste on the girl’s face, hands and feet. After this ritual, she takes bath with holy water and then wears bridal dress, which is brought by her maternal uncle. The same kind of ritual is also performed in boy’s family as well. But, there one thing is different that is ‘sehra’ ceremony in which an elder man of the family helps him to wear ‘sehra’ along with his wedding dress.

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Wedding is considered as one of the most important ceremony of one’s life and for family also. Across the world people follow different rituals and customs during wedding according to their religion and community. But, there are some strange and unique

Usage of tomatoes to welcome Baraatis: In a small town, which is known as Sarsaul, there natives follow a very strange way to welcome the baraatis. They don’t welcome the baraatis with flowers or garlands, rather they hurled tomatoes to welcome Baraatis. They have strange believe that a relationship that begins on an unhappy note always turns into a good and loving relation.

Goodies for river Ganga: In Bengali marriage they have a very unique ritual in which the aunts of the bride set a special plate of aarti, which includes different types of goodies and sweets. They offer all these goodies and sweets to the holy river Ganga. They have a belief that by doing so the river Ganga will be happy and she will shower blessings on their daughter.

Groom pretending to opt for Sanyaasam: This could be one of the most unique customs in any wedding. In Tamil Brahmin wedding, the moment groom enters into the Mandap, he has to pretend and show to have a mind change and he does not want to get marry, rather he wants to opt for ‘Sanyaasam’. In this situation, the father of the bride encourages and convinces him to choose ‘Grahastham’ and marry his daughter. This strange tradition is known as ‘Kasi Yaatrai’.

Earthen pot balancing by bride: This is very different ritual from others as the newly wedded bride. The new bride is given a huge earthen pot to keep on her head by her mother-in-law. Other females of the family add more pots to test the endurance and balancing skills of the bride. This ritual is conducted to test the skills of the bride to maintain the balance in the family.

Flags in wedding: Have you heard about any wedding with flags? Kumauni wedding has this unique ritual of usage of flags in wedding. A white flag, which is known as ‘Nishan’ leads that baraat and represents the bridegroom. The last man in the procession holds a red flag that represents the bride.

Silk shawl to separate bride & groom: Marathi people use a silk shawl that is known as Antrapat to separate the bride and groom. It is only removed when the pandit starts chanting the mangal mantras. After that bride and groom can see each-other.

Ghara gharoli: This Ghara gharoli ritual is extremely sacred among all the Punjabi’s. The bride’s sibling is supposed to fill a pitcher with water from a nearby temple. The bride takes bath in the same water after that only she wears her wedding dress.

Madhuparka: It is very important ceremony in Gujarati wedding. In this wedding ritual of Madhuparkat ceremony, when bride’s parents welcome the groom. They wash his feet and offer Panchamrut, a liquid made of milk, honey, yogurt, sugar and ghee. After completing the ceremony then he enters the mandap.